Central Park Jogger Case (1989)

Updated: Oct. 3, 2012

On April 19, 1989, a young woman was raped and beaten nearly to death while running in Central Park. The victim became world famous as the Central Park Jogger, as the brutality, randomness and site of the attack made it emblematic not only of a city spun out of control but of intractable racial polarization.

Six black or Hispanic teenagers were charged, and five eventually convicted in the attack. The five men, who were teenagers at the time, were held and interviewed by the police for more than 24 hours before they confessed. Their arrests led to headlines that included “wolf pack” and the coined term “wilding” that fueled racial divisions.

Years later, an imprisoned murderer and serial rapist, Matias Reyes, said that he alone had attacked the jogger. A DNA test confirmed that he had raped her, and a judge threw out the five men’s convictions.

The identity of the jogger, who suffered brain damage, was shielded by major news organizations. She remained anonymous until she revealed herself as Trisha Meili and wrote a bestselling book, “I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility,” in 2003.

She has no memory of the attack.

“The Central Park Five”

In a new movie, the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns explores the lives of the men who were convicted, and later exonerated. It has its roots in work that Mr. Burns’s daughter, Sarah, began while a student at Yale University. Her research eventually became a book. Mr. Burns, Sarah Burns and her husband, David McMahon, wrote, directed and produced the film together.

The film explores many questions surrounding the convictions, pointing out that the chronology of events suggests the five men were not in the area of the park where the rape occurred, their DNA was not found on the victim, and their confessions contradicted one another’s.

David N. Dinkins, who was the city’s mayor then, is shown reading a passage from the Morgenthau report saying that the confessions differed on nearly every aspect of the crime, and that some were simply contrary to established fact.

“Now, this is a damn shame,” Mr. Dinkins says solemnly.

Lawyers for New York City subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the film in September 2012, in the hope it would help them defend againt a federal lawsuit filed by the men. Mr. Burns said the subpoena came after the city had spent years rebuffing requests for interviews that he felt would have helped explain the actions taken by law enforcement officials involved in the prosecutions.

The city has long maintained that officers and prosecutors acted in good faith based on the best information available, and that what became available later, including the confession of Mr. Reyes, cannot retroactively alter that fact.

Chronology of Coverage

Sep. 6, 2014

Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray and Kharey Wise, five men wrongly convicted of beating and raping female jogger in Central Park in 1989, are being awarded $41 million in damages; agreement includes no admission of wrongdoing from New York City, which continues to deny that convictions of the five men were the result of law enforcement misconduct. MORE

Jun. 28, 2014

Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana Jr, three of the five men whose convictions were overturned in 1989 attack on a Central Park jogger, hold press conference in which they praise Mayor Bill de Blasio for agreeing to settle their longstanding suit against city; de Blasio had promised during his mayoral campaign to settle suit, long fought by the Bloomberg administration. MORE

Jun. 27, 2014

Jim Dwyer About New York column on fact that New York City police appeared, for 13 years, to have lost track of rapist Matias Reyes, who ultimately confessed in 2002 to raping Central Park jogger; examines case of woman, identified only as Katherine, who was violently raped and assaulted by Reyes in July of 1989, months after the Central Park rape, in which he was initially held as suspect but not charged. MORE

Jun. 27, 2014

New York City comptroller’s office announces that it has approved settlement of longstanding lawsuit by five men whose convictions were overturned in brutal 1989 beating and rape of female jogger in Central Park; four of the men served about seven years in prison, while one served 13 years; statement does not specify amount of settlement but media reports indicate that about $40 million will be divided among the five men. MORE

Jun. 25, 2014

Jim Dwyer About New York column asserts a check for $40 million, or whatever amount of money, cannot settle the history of the 1989 Central Park jogger case; points out aspect of case that remains shrouded in mystery is wrongful liberty of serial rapist Matias Reyes, who had been identified by police before he attacked jogger, and rampaged through Upper East Side for four months before he was caught. MORE

Jun. 21, 2014

Editorial holds that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio acted in interest of justice in agreeing to pay $40 million to five black and Hispanic men wrongly convicted in brutal beating and rape of white, female jogger in Central Park in 1989; asserts that while payment cannot bring back men's lost youth, it will bring sense of closure to shameful and racially divisive episode. MORE

Jun. 20, 2014

Five men whose convictions in 1989 rape of Central Park jogger Trisha Meili were later overturned agree to a settlement of about $40 million from New York City; agreement brings an end to extraordinary legal battle over a crime that came to symbolize a sense of city's lawlessness; proposed settlement averages roughly $1 million for each year of imprisonment for the men; confidential deal must still be approved by Comptroller Scott M Stringer and then by a federal judge. MORE

May. 3, 2013

Jim Dwyer About New York column excoriates Twitter campaign by political consultant Frank Chi to have Elizabeth Lederer, lawyer who prosecuted 1989 Central Park jogger rape case, fired from her job as Columbia University Law School professor; holds that Chi's petition is grossly unjust, reducing Lederer's lifetime of public service to a single moment, and unfairly designating her as the only villain in a collective failure. MORE

Mar. 1, 2013

Jim Dwyer About New York column holds that New York City officials have yet to explain what led to wrongful convictions of five teenagers in Central Park Jogger case; says one possibility is simple blundering, but whatever the reason, it is time city came clean on how the real criminal in the case got away. MORE

Feb. 28, 2013

New York City Council passes resolution calling for city to acknowledge years of suffering of all those involved in the Central Park jogger case, including both the men whose convictions were vacated and the jogger herself, by settling 1989 lawsuit filed against city. MORE

Feb. 20, 2013

New York City lawyers are rebuffed in their efforts to subpoena outtakes from documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’s movie The Central Park Five; film is about the five men who were convicted and later exonerated in racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger rape case; federal lawsuit brought by men has been pending for 10 years. MORE

Nov. 21, 2012

Jim Dwyer About New York column; Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise, all of whom were wrongly convicted in the Central Park jogger case in 1988, attend the premiere of Ken Burns documentary film The Central Park Five. MORE